After The Twitter Tiger

      The poor old Duckie, Donald the failed Duce, is looking like a Twitter Tiger now, without whatever it takes to become a proper fascist. It is amazing that so much of his presence could be simply turned off at the click of a mouse. I wonder however whether it is wise to take this as the last word on the matter. He may be pretty scattered himself, but the depth of his support should at least give cause for caution in completely writing him and his followers off, particularly if the latter come up with a more focussed and competant leader. 

     Like so much that is false, Trumpism nonetheless thrived on a few sparks of insight that the world, and particularly America, finds difficult to acknowledge. The first and biggest is that the old ideal of The City on a Hill is widely  discredited,  even in the subconscious of those who profess it, pace Barack Obama, whose tome A Promised Land I am currently reading. I note that the biggest set-backs that Obama encountered in his campaign were when questions bubbled up from the Black experience regarding the self-image of Americans as a Chosen Race; when Michelle blurted out that she was 'proud of her country, for the first time in her adult life', or when Barack's old pastor said that 9/11 was in part 'a matter of America's chickens... coming home to roost', - referring to 'our record of wanton violence overseas'. Even the Ducky in his presidential campaign averred that America's military interventions overseas hardly qualified as success stories.     

     What the USA in fact stands for in many minds is MONEY more than anything else, so there was a certain relief when that guy came along saying it out aloud, relieving the folks of their sense of guilt when he stood before his golden gates saying, Behold, I'm Mr Money, or even better, 'The King of Debt', and what's more, America first,-I'm here to unapologetically put YOU first'! After all that idealism of Barack Obama, which one might dismiss as a lot of hot air, it was a relief to get real again!

     If the Ducky had been left in peace to tickle up the feel-good factor of Americans, he would have been re-elected. It's the pandemic that popped that bubble. Yet even here, there is a strand in his narrative that scores. He was mad to call it a hoax, and I do not wish to imply that in the practical reality we are faced with lockdowns are not a necessary response, yet there is something that seems very wrong with them in practice, some element of a death wish. One obvious example of it is the fact of all these old people having to die in isolation, cutting across every human instinct (especially Irish ones). Beyond this is the horrible uneasy feeling that we are witnessing the onset of a ghastly totalitarianism, which is buttressed by the conviction some of us have, that when society loses touch with God, it inevitably falls prey to some kind of thralldom.

      A more immediate and empirical conviction is that the pandemic could have been tackled much more promptly and effectively were it not for willful mass blindness to the possibilities of homoeopathy. This goes back to the dawn of the 'scientific age' in the mid 19th century, when the 'gentlemen of the Medical Council' suppressed the results, strongly favouring homoeopathy, of a Government survey of the effectiveness of the treatment administered to cholera victims in the various London hospitals. In response to a parliamentary question, they unanimously asserted that 'That by introducing the returns of homoeopathic practitioners, they would not only compromise the value and utility of their averages of cure, as deduced from the operation of known remedies, but they would give an unjustifiable sanction to an empirical practice alike opposed to the maintenance of truth and to the progress of science'.*  

     There are none so blind as them that will not see! The pity is that these attitudes have not changed, while science has moved on to the extent that, in the age of quantum physics, there is the possibility of a better understanding of homoeopathy. However I readily admit to being scientifically illiterate, which probably has helped me to appreciate a good thing when I see it. I looked over Fiona's shoulder for years as she studied homoeopathy, practised for a while and used it en famille. Since I was diagnosed with prostate cancer last autumn, I have been using it myself, and am fairly confident of success. I admit however that we are sailing in the dark, and I learned long ago that the first rule of navigation is to consider the possibility that one might be wrong. I have difficulty, however, in persuading the medics to do the same!

     So to get back to where we started, for all the indignation about the Ducky these days, let us remember that but for the pandemic, we would probably be facing another Trump presidency. Much will depend, for President Biden, on how it goes now. Will the vaccine cavalry in fact ride to the rescue? Anyway, whatever did happen to 'Yes We Can'  and all that? Is there a torch that can be raised aloft again? What went wrong and how can America, and the rest of us, avoid being dragged, deeper, into the same old cycle? Will the Biden Presidency help rid us on this side of the Atlantic of the mendacious vandals of Brexit? And will we finally be able to walk the walk with regard to climate change?

     It is true of course that money talks, especially in American politics. One of the exhilarating features of the Obama presidency was that the underdogs appeared to be getting the better of the plutocrats. One did not have to be black to feel that. However, I think, if one wants to see the values of a Promised Land prevail, there are certain mistakes that the Democrats should not make again, possibly on account of big money too (from Planned Parenthood for instance), such as championing especially partial-birth abortion, which is impossible for many of us to distinguish from infanticide. It would almost make me vote Republican, if I were American. Why not do the right thing, and stop handing good ammo to the other side?

     Beyond this, there is a further reason why that famous flame of Liberty has nearly been  blown out. As St Peter said, 'God does not have favourites'. The real Promised Land is not the property of any nation, tribe or language, or even political party. If it belongs to anyone, it belongs to the poor, the hungry, the rejected, vulnerable and homeless. If President Biden can remember this, he should do ok. If the Republicans only remembered it, they might be a respectable party again. May they all succeed in reuniting their country, in humility though, without jingoism of any kind. Joe Biden is stepping off on a good note. For now at least, I wish the new President well!

 

God Bless President Biden, from the other side of the Atlantic (looking West from the Priest's Strand, Sherkin Island}!

     

*Click here for article from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.